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2 Self, Living-In History, Who Is Sending Us Mock"Ry, in the Ìa-E of the Peoplei a SLA.VO PH ILE ST,A'teh'f EI{T His Terrible Revelations

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2 Self, Living-In History, Who Is Sending Us Mock Å. Slaaophile;Støtenent g7g How, indeed, are we to define the im- case the whole historical principle of the pressions which fill our souls at this national life has been attácþed, the auto- moment? It is sorrow, it is grief, it is cratic power bestowed upon the Em- shame and ho¡'ror-a Find ;J solemn peror Ëy the country itsä[. who are foreboding horror. Divine judgment is ihose who dared to brinq that awful up against us. It is God shame "qy.tj.:n Him- upon the paople, aid, as if by &2 self, living-in history, who is sending us mock"ry, in the ìa-e of the peoplei A SLA.VO PH ILE ST,A'TEh'f EI{T His terrible revelations. We are now ITho are they? Is it merely a haidt,il ot standing before Him, and called upon to c-riminals, biood-thirsty biockheads, en- answer. What is the answer we are slaved by the By laan A.ltsakoa giv- demoi of destruction? ing? Is there any answer we could giie? ì[here did they come from? Let us ad- Let everyone appeal to his conscience. trs dress that question sternly to ourselves. he not partly to be blamed for the in- Is it not the product of our moral trea- whìch With his brother Konstantin, and with lurii Samarin, Ivan Aksakov (1823-86) famy has deserved the punish. son, of whichis guilty almost,all the so- ment of God and stained our called led the second Slavophile generation. The first period of Slavophilism, inaugurated country in liberal-press? Òan it be anything (mentioned the eyes of the whole world? I-et us not else- but the lõgical, extreme expressioi by Aleksei Khomiakov below) and lvan Kireevskii, came to a close 'Westernism with the Crimean War (1854-56). The second period may be said to have ended deceive ourselves. We are on the edge of of that which, since ihe time with Ivan Aksakov's death. Itre had been a civil servant in various parts of Russia ruin. One step more in the fatal direc- of Peter the Great, demoralised both tion we followed during tle 1840's. After fighting in the Crimean War as a volunteer, he played a with such criminal our governmenË and our society, and Ieading part in the Moscow Slavic Committee (1858-78). The Committee was dis- light-headednes¡, gnd we attain to blood has marred all the .firir"ì and chaos! -äheady banded by the government, and Aksakov was exiled from Moscow for a speech This is no exaggeration, no manifestadóns of our national lif^e? Not words. .not criticizing Russiãn foreign policy. Itre continued to edit various Slavophile journals mere Do flatter yourselves content to profit by all the riches of with dreams. If our country is mute, European until his deatÌ¡. The speech reprinted below was made shortly after Alexander II's it _thought änd knowledge, we assassination. provides an illustration of the Slavophile doctrine of "democratic is because she is wondering andemazed. bor¡owed her siirit, developed by"a for- It 'religiån. autocracy," Do y-ou- realise the meaning of the silen-t eign history and foreign We wondering of ,Additional speeches by Ivan Aksakov are reprinted in OIga Novikova, R¡¿ssiø .many-millions of people? idoiising Euroie, woishipping Their þ"gun and, Eng!ønil, pp. 2z[-35, 53-60, 98-106. Some of the works of the Slavophiles breasr is swelling like an oJean, hei gods and ñer idotå! who i, ìå ¡Ë Alexei Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky are translated in Volume I of tl¡e anthology full of heavy- thoughts. No external blamãd? some forty years ago has not calamity Russian Fhilosophy edited by James Edie el ø1. Biographies are luøn .âksakoa by could be compared--to ,h9 Khomiakov *".r,"d ús, threãtening us moral burden .deseiting Stephen Ï-ukashevich, and Konsføntin ,4ksakou by Edward Chrnielewski. See also caused by the villainy of with Ðivine punishment for March Feter Struve, "Ivan Aksakov," Slnoonic ønd Eøst Eu,ropeøn Reuiëw, Vol. II. l. all that is saired to our hearts'? BuT The Emperor is murdered; ,So- Nicholas Riasanovsky has written R¿ss¿ø ønd, the West in the Teøching ol the -- the same really, what are these 'Anarchists,' Emper-or who was Sløaophiles. See also Edward Thaden, Conseroatit¡e NationøIis¡n in Lgth Century the greatest benefac- cial bemocrats,' and Revolutionists, as tor Russia,, and a cl-eapter on the Slavophiles in John Ûtaynard's Russía in Flux to his country, who ãmancipated, be- they._ call themselves? Have they the stowing (paperback). There is an essay on 'oPersonality and Society in the ldeology of upon them human ãnd civil smàllest particle of Russian spirit in all rights,_tens of 'their the Slavophiles" by Andrzej Walicki in Californ.iø Slauic Stud.ies, Vol. II. The millions of Russian peas- aspirations and aims? I's there the ants. He is murdered; Slavophiles are discussed in three chapters of Richard Hare's Pioneers ol Russian not from perional slightesf shade in their teachings of a vengeance, Social Thought (paperback). Peter Christoff has written Khorniakoa, a biography not for booty, but precisely protest_against the real shortcorñings of he the of the first Slavophile leader. Janko tr-avrin has articles on "Kireevsky and the is Emperor, theìrowneã wh;"h Rrissia is sufiering? Just thå op_ head,l*lur: Froblem of Russian Culture," in the Russi¿n Reoiew,.April, 1961, and "Khomiakov the representative, the first man of posite; what they despile most is pre- and the Slavs," iðid., January, L964- his country, that vital, single man, who õisely the Russian p"opt". In their 'ser- personified the.very essence, the whole vile-imitation oT fåreign teaching and th9 whole strength and power, foreign ADDRESS TO TFIE qJ! P_!TERS- greatly like to convey to you whar is imag9, of idols, they oriþ borrow"what Itussia. From time immemoiial can eãsily tsURG tsENEVûLENT SLAV- said and thought at Mosców, but it is that be expläined, if not excused, power constituted IC COMMITTEE beyond expreision by spoken word. the strength of the in Western Europe by historical and so- country. 'I'he attempt Gentlemen,-I came from Moscorv to directed against cial conditions. There results of that the rake p,arr in your assembry, and to join ,,lrîä"919"nilîîTi:ï"tj-'j:1,1ï t!""!at{:, person of the Tzar is always directed kind are the natural protest caused by my Moscow voice to yours. I should 1883), pp.35+62. against the whole people; but in this unequal partition of rand, the unjust 37R 388 ,4 Sløuophih Sta,ætæe¡¿t A SløaophíIe Statemenî, 381 reign of the bourgeoisie over the fourth all the external cala¡nities was the moral ness of Sahara. But that autocrat, com. chanical apparatus, but to the'holiest of class--ìeprived of all civil organisation treason of its leading class, powerful posed of several numerical units, bears beings'-to a man with a human soul, and political rights--a protest, tlere- through knowledge ãnd deveiopment. no moral responsibility before its con- with a. Russian heartn and a Christian fore, against the present constitutional The reforrns of Peter the Great weak. science and the countryr responsibility conscience. The people know, dnd know forms, ened our memory and disabled us from which falls heavily on the on" personul well, the drawbacks of every human in. But that injustice is exactly whrt we understanding . our own history-so representative of the supreme power. stitutionn but feel at the same time the do not possess. Thank God, and thanks very difrerent from that of the lVest. More than that, the so-called lowest power to overcome and'improve them. to that ver¡i martyr-Emperor so brutal- Conquest is not at the bottorn of our his. class, forming the great bulk of the And our former Tzars have not deceived murdered, our 'fourth classr' or our torical as ly life, is the case in all the country, is not even represented in the their hopes and conñdence; they held peasantry, forming almost eighty per Western countries. Our history begins Chambers. It is simply excluded, it is majestically and rigorously their im- cent of the whole realm, now posseès with quite a voluntary and rational ap. 'Western despised by the 'Intelligentsia.' perial title, and asked.for advice the land, organisation, and the most com- peal to power. The same appeal was ie- During the First Republic the French whole Russian land in the shape of our piete self-government. To this very day, peated much later, in 1612, and gave Representative .A,ssembly declared- Zemskü Sobory, and the laird never that fourth class is the keeper of our the foundation to the pres€nt reigning quite legally as far as the form was con- failed to bring in response the love and historical instinct, of our religion, and dynasty, empowered with autocìacy-, cerned, and in the name of the people- the truthful thoughts of the whole ria- of the whole element of our political and nothing and nobody couTd induóe that the worship addressed to God was tion. There was no mentioning any po. organism. They, and not the so-called the country to alter that shape of gov. null, and replaced by adoration of the Iitical rights, or supporting arú kind ot 'Intelligentsia,' are the real supporters ernment. Such was the will, suih waJthe 'Goddess of Reason'; and all that in the political doctrine. It was the regular, of our country. T'he memory of our inspiration of the national spirit.
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